I've Never Been (Un) Happier

by Shaheen Bhatt

  Fourth, my entire experience of reality changed. In a moment I felt completely removed from my own body. I felt as though the invisible connection between mind and body had been completely severed and I was hovering somewhere outside of myself, a disembodied tangle of thoughts with the fast fading memory of the word ‘I’ trying to hold it all together.

  Fifth, my brain started screaming at me ‘Oh my God, you’re going crazy. Oh my God, you’re dying! You’re having a heart attack! Human hearts are not built to beat this fast! You can’t breathe! Your throat is closing! You’re having an allergic reaction to this haircut! Of course you can have an allergic reaction to a haircut, you’re just the first person to ever have one!’

  My body tensed up and froze as all these alarming new physical sensations rose, and crashed and cascaded over me.

  By now the chic, muscular, pierced and tattooed man cutting my hair had noticed something was going on with me because I was rather conspicuously staring at my own reflection in the mirror with my eyes widened in horror and my mouth hanging open in a sort of silent scream.

  ‘All good?’ he cautiously ventured.

  My eyes slowly shifted from my own face up to his and with the same wide-eyed horror I somehow hoarsely breathed the words, ‘YesI’mfinethankyouthisisgoinggreatcanIhaveaglassofwaterpleaseIneedtogotothebathroom,’ abruptly stood up, scarpered to the bathroom and then barricaded myself in.

  Ten minutes later I managed to pull myself together long enough to finish the haircut teetering between the belief that I was either losing my mind or dying. As soon as I was done, I hightailed it over to the doctor to make sure that I hadn’t arrived at the tragic, would-be-widely-reported, end of my young life.

  It turns out, deep emotional scarring aside, there was nothing physically wrong with me. I still didn’t realize what I had experienced was a panic attack though, so I continued to be convinced that I was grievously ill.

  That first attack kick-started a spate of anxiety-related symptoms that I have battled with ever since and I still haven’t managed to resolve. After getting the boot from college in 2006, my life was in flux. I was getting my degree, sure, but I didn’t have classes to attend and it was mostly because my mother refused to even entertain the possibility that I might not finish school. With no real external pressure or sense of purpose I slid further into a life of inaction. This continued for the next two years in varying degrees and even after I finally got my degree a life of nothing became normal and ‘something’ became increasingly harder to pursue. All my pursuits came in non-committal bursts and my productivity waxed and waned with my moods. I’d work on a script for two months then do nothing for four, I’d do a short course in editing then fall back into a depressive slump locking myself in my bedroom for a month, and on and on it went. My day-to-day life comprised of a steady, unchanging stream of guilt and anxiety, guilt for never doing as much as I should have and the constant anxiety that I was steadily losing more and more time. And the anxiety never abated.

  I had several more panic attacks after that first one, one of which took place when I was due to get back on a flight home from a holiday in Bangkok. I still have the ID card from the hospital visit as a fond and funny memento. Every time someone wants to know what a panic attack looks like I show them that ID card. In it, is the expression I so intimately got to know while looking at myself in the mirror during that first panic attack—eyes widened in horror, mouth open in a silent scream. I also (less fondly) remember the alarm in my mother’s voice when I called her from the hospital, hyperventilating, to inform her that I would not be getting on the flight back home and that Thailand was my home now.

  I was convinced that once I got on that plane and was thirty-five-thousand feet in the air, somewhere over the Bay of Bengal, I would have a heart attack and die. So, I resolved to stay in the hospital until I could be certain that my heart was not about to give up on me and just stop beating. A few hours, a consultation with one Dr Spain and some potent anti-anxiety medication later, I did get on the plane but I spent all six hours in near tears, breathing into a bag while maintaining a vice-like grip on the armrest.

  Health anxiety was and still is one of the most debilitating side effects of depression I’ve experienced. My fixation on death and my all-consuming fear of it, was the perfect fuel for this anxious, hypochondriac fire. It doesn’t help that I have had notoriously bad luck with my health either.

  Now, every time I go somewhere new or unfamiliar I do a quick Google search for the nearest hospital. Every time I’m in a darkened theatre or auditorium, I sit in an aisle seat so I can leave immediately if I need to. Before I get on a plane I make sure I have a goodbye letter written just in case. I also carry around a pouch of medication with me everywhere I go. It contains everything from anti-allergy and anti-anxiety medications to bronchodilators and medication to lower my heart rate. I’ve never had to use most of the contents in that pouch. But I have them all, just in case.

  ‘Just in case’ and ‘what if’—the taglines for anxiety.

  Of course, anxiety isn’t limited to panic attacks and hypochondria. There are many different kinds of anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are mental disorders that have anxiety and fear as their primary characteristics. Put simply, fear is a response to current, stressful or disturbing events while anxiety is worry about possible future events.

  Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Agoraphobia are just some of the types of anxiety.

  I also have terrible social anxiety. Shocking, I know. The list never ends.

  Being around unfamiliar people is hard for me. Being around large groups of people is hard for me. Being in situations where I’m the focus (I hate birthdays so so much) is hard for me.

  The family I come from is a confident one. My parents, my siblings—they’re self-assured and they’re poised.

  I’m not like that.

  I’m awkward (read: downright stupid) in social situations, I don’t make much eye contact, I talk too fast, I say the wrong things (Them: Nice to meet you; Me: You’re welcome; Them: Happy Birthday; Me: You too), I shrink.

  I’m notorious for never responding to text messages or answering the phone or going to places I’m invited to and I have literally ducked behind things in public places to avoid saying hello to old acquaintances.

  It took me a long time to realize that anxiety has taken over my life almost as much as depression has.

  I’ve heard a lot of people say that if given a choice, they would take the certainty of depression over the uncertainty of anxiety a thousand times over . . . and, I kind of get why.

  Anxiety and depression make strange but inseparable bedfellows (I’ve always wanted to use that expression).

  Inseparable, because depression and anxiety frequently exist side by side. Depression can cause anxiety and flipped the other way around, anxiety can cause depression. They coexist, though that isn’t necessarily always the case.

  Strange, because depression and anxiety are fundamentally conflicting experiences.

  Say what you will about depression, but it’s not uncertain about what it wants you to feel. It’s not unsure. It’s single-minded and blinkered in its vision for you, the host, and it expertly executes its masterplan. When you are depressed, you don’t question the futility of life. It just is futile. You’re not unsure about whether the future is bleak and hopeless or not. You know it is hopeless, it’s a fact. You aren’t doubtful about whether or not you’re going to get better. You simply aren’t. It’s impossible.

  Depression is futility brought to life and given a home inside your mind.

  Anxiety is the complete opposite. It is uncertainty. It is the fear that something bad might be coming if you aren’t fully prepared.

  It is worrying that things are different than they seem. That people who say they like you don’t actually like you. That the same cheque you’ve deposited month after month
isn’t going to clear. That the niggling itch in your throat is something much worse than a cough. That everything you think you know is a lie.

  With anxiety, your life is a carefully constructed pyramid of playing cards that is always a light breeze away from collapsing (or well, fluttering) to the ground.

  When you’re depressed, time stops.

  When you’re anxious, it speeds up in a terrifying, unsettling and inconsistent way.

  Depression is lying immobile on the ground for hours.

  Anxiety is fidgeting, pacing and hyperventilating.

  Depression is grief.

  Anxiety is fear.

  A mind experiencing depression and anxiety side by side is like the unfortunate piece of rope caught in a game of tug of war. It’s constantly being pulled and tugged and stretched in opposite directions with no respite. The second you settle into a feeling, another contradictory one comes along and takes its place. And on and on it goes until your brain is reduced to a puddle of mush. For me, depression at its worst is like being cold and still and dead. Anxiety is like having a mind that’s on fire and being charred to ash. It’s what makes the day-to-day awkwardness of being me unbearable, as if it wasn’t already hard enough.

  Something under my left knee buzzes.

  Closer inspection reveals it’s my phone again.

  Seven missed calls and three trillion messages.

  This time it’s my mother.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ the message reads.

  I told her on day two of this episode that I wasn’t feeling well. Migraine, I think I said. It’s the easiest thing to fake if someone comes over unannounced. You don’t have all that pretend coughing and sniffling to contend with.

  All these years later, I still do it, I still instinctively brush past and hide my worst days.

  Especially from my family.

  I know how much they worry, and I know how helpless they feel when they can’t help.

  I’m grateful for how much they care and I’m grateful for the fact that I have the comfort and luxury of a supportive, loving family. But on days like this, even a simple ‘How are you feeling’ is an impossible question to answer. Even the concern from my loved ones is draining. I feel compelled to reassure other people that I’m okay because if I don’t they’ll spend their time trying to make me feel better or asking me questions I don’t have the energy to answer.

  So sometimes, I just say I’m sick. Or don’t respond at all.

  I glance through the rest of my messages. More of the same.

  ‘Tried calling, call me when you’re free.’

  ‘Dude, are we still on for tomorrow?’

  ‘Are you hibernating again?’

  Most people in my life exhibit remarkable patience with me.

  I’ve spent years swinging wildly between being an attentive friend who’s all there and being absent, unreliable and distracted.

  Isolation is one of the hallmarks of depression.

  The shame and the fatigue of depression are just a few of the many reasons I find that I tend to isolate myself. For me, some of the most alienating and exhausting parts of this entire experience come from simply having to explain to people how I feel.

  It always seems like an exercise in futility.

  I could never string together the right sequence of words to sufficiently describe the sheer chaos of the tempest raging in my head.

  And I can hardly respond to ‘How are you feeling?’ with ‘Not so great, there’s a tempest raging in my head’ every single time.

  So instead, I say, ‘Not so great, I have a headache.’

  At least when I say I have a headache the looks of commiseration I get are straightforward. Everyone understands what it’s like to have a headache. Everyone’s had a headache before and even if they haven’t it’s easy enough to say ‘Well, it sorta feels like someone’s repeatedly stabbing me with a small fork right here, behind my left eye.’

  ‘Ahhh, oh nooo, those are the worst,’ they’ll say with their brows furrowed in sympathy before they reliably offer up their own foolproof headache cures.

  A raging tempest is a little harder to describe without risking the chance of being met with looks of polite confusion, blankness or that face someone makes when trying to do a complicated division sum in their head without breaking eye contact.

  On days like today I don’t have the wherewithal to explain the tempest so, I just brush over it.

  I respond to my mother.

  ‘Headache better. Still not 100%. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.’

  Talk

  Depression world over is almost exclusively described through the use of metaphors, analogies and symbolism.

  The only descriptive words we have to try and communicate pain—words like ‘sadness’ and ‘grief’—don’t even begin to reveal the complexity of the emotions they’re assigned to. It’s why we must resort to likening depression to parasitic monsters that drain us of our joy or dark shadows that consume us.

  ‘No one understands how I feel’ is in all probability the most frequently thought and spoken descriptor of depression (and being a teenager) of all time, and I think that’s because it’s true. No one can truly understand how you feel because the pain you experience is unique to you. Negative emotions draw deeply from who you are and your unrepeatable set of experiences and insecurities, which is why they’re so different for everyone. Your mind’s every response is a product of experiences that are yours alone and pain routinely taps into every single one of them. It takes your whole life, and every single incidence and coincidence that has ever happened to you, to make you who you are. Every cut, every scrape, every hurtful word, every heartbreak, every good or bad thing you have ever done, every mistake you have ever made and so much more come together to make you the beautiful, complex, perfectly messy creature you currently are, and it is precisely this self-definition that makes sadness such a solitary and isolating emotion. Your pain, like your fingerprints, is unique to you.

  In other words, you can buy happiness off the rack—but sadness is tailor-made just for you.

  When describing our emotions words can only take us so far, yet words are all we have. So often the problem isn’t with the emotions themselves but the language we use to describe them. The drawback of using language as much as we do—as our dominant method of interaction with the world, those around us and even ourselves—is that we sometimes forget how limited the code of language is. Sadness is not created, encoded, stored and decoded in language alone, yet language is the only vessel through which we can communicate it, providing us with only the barest representation of our feelings.

  Think about the word ‘hot’ for a second. Think about reaching your hand out towards the flickering flame of a candle. Think about the rapid changes in sensation you experience as you get closer and closer to the light—how the warmth is pleasant and spreads through your fingers and down your hand as you approach the halo of the flame, how the sensation intensifies and escalates meteorically with every passing nanosecond, how before you’ve had the chance to register and assimilate the satisfying part of the experience that enjoyable warmth has been replaced by a vague discomfort and a mounting sensation of burning until, in an instant, you snap your hand away from the flame and cradle your fingers in your other, more temperate hand, shooting a nasty look at the tiny little flame that wanted nothing to do with you in the first place.

  Now consider how effectively the word ‘hot’ describes such a discovery and understanding of the state of the flame.

  So, how effectively can any word we make up describe the throbbing, consuming ache of sadness and pain?

  I think, the reason depression is so misunderstood is that there is no truly adequate way to relay what it feels like. It’s why the only people who really understand it are those who’ve experienced it firsthand, and even then, their experience of it may differ greatly from your own.

  This is why I sometimes wonder if words are where it all went wr
ong.

  Human beings created language, and to distil light years of semantic theory, we used that language to identify a feeling and give it a name.

  If we strip all of it away—the words, the constructs and concepts of mental illness—or the boxes we create to slot and control, what are we left with?

  A feeling. A feeling that expresses itself as a series of questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is life? Why am I alive? I didn’t ask to be born, why do I have to die?

  Over time and generations these questions have come to be rote, but cliches are cliches for a reason. It is upon the bedrock of these very questions that the human consciousness is built and everything we do in life is an attempt to answer them, to explain our state of being and come to terms with the perturbing inevitability of our ceasing to exist one day. Yet, faced with a lack of clarity to these impossible questions we never really answer them; so we choose to forget instead. We neatly tuck the questions away or find resolution through faith and get on with our lives because that’s all we can do if we want to live lives that are not bogged down by fears we have no way of assuaging. It’s why so many of us shy away from talking about the unresolvable predicaments of life—death, depression, feelings. With the absence of concrete answers we simply choose to move on with our lives rather than painfully ponder the questions, and we make peace with not knowing or fully understanding the circumstances of our existence.

  I sometimes wonder if my only problem is that I have a constant and more acute awareness of the impermanence of the world around me, a visceral link to the laws governing my life. Man-made laws, to a certain extent, I can control. Physical laws I can’t—and perhaps it’s from this helplessness that my issues stem. Maybe cognizance is my only problem.

  I don’t mean to suggest that others without depression are less cognizant or self-aware, but perhaps they possess a more refined ability to tune out this awareness and get on with their lives. Maybe it’s just that the depressed find it harder to ignore reminders of the transience of life in everything that surrounds us. Maybe all we see is a flashing neon sign that reads ‘futile’.